Baby I'm Just Killing Time
by Aeanagwen
Summary: 3 parts pragmatism, 2 parts optimism, 1 parts sheer desperation. Layer and serve over ice. Garnish with mordant humor as desired. (Five drinks Manny shared with people in Rubacava, and one he had alone.)


_Scotch on the rocks -_

If you had asked Manny about a month ago what a "business owners' association meeting" looked like, he would have responded with something like, "Wouldn't you like to know? And for that matter, wouldn't I?" But privately, he would have speculated something like a low-rent meeting hall, cheap coffee or maybe cheap wine if the venue was nicer, and probably some kind of small over-invested man taking the minutes—the sort of mamón with a comb-over so intrinsic to his very essence that the Higher Powers had etched it into his skull upon entrance to the afterlife.

He definitely would not have predicted red velvet couches, scotch that would have Domino Hurley crawling up the wall with envy, and Maximino, owner of Feline Meadows and possessor of a handshake that puts Manny in mind of a greased piston rod.

"Lets see, it's Calavera, right?" It's like being spoken to by a brick wall that someone inexplicably decided to cover in plum-colored silk—but at least this brick wall is cordial. All in all, Manny's been subtly menaced by worse.

"I'm the talk of the town, I see," he responds, playing bravado like a bluff on a two-pair.

"Eh, word gets around. Welcome to the club, good to have some new blood in town, yadda yadda yadda." Maximino spins a hand with a practiced flourish and produces a cigar as big around as Manny's clavicle from an inside coat pocket. "Looking forward to having another entrepreneurial soul around to talk to. Smoke?"

"Too stout for me, thanks." Manny holds his hands up in surrender, in part because he's not yet ready to break the metaphorical loaf with the man who sets the rates on all the local racketeering, and in larger part because it is, really, too stout for him. He prefers to keep his vices on a budget. "I'll stick to my slims."

"Suit yourself—maybe once you're outta the red, am I right?" Max laughs like a round of returned fire. Manny chuckles as the cannonades die down, but reflexively defends his honor.

"Actually, the place was a steal."

"Yes, so we've been hearing." Nick-the-lawyer, standing in his boss' shadow like the fine print on a home loan contract, taps out a cigarette and flips open a lighter. He flicks a flame to life, lights up, and then passes the lighter up to Max. "Is it true that Pablo Picado left town so suddenly even his bartender didn't know?"

"It's so sad when families have a falling-out, isn't it?" Manny's grin doesn't falter—he's had a lot of practice putting on a good face for sharks, and Virago has clearly been following the blood in the water.

"Can't fault a man for ambition, that's what I always say." Maximino lights up, and gestures expansively. A harried-looking waiter appears, seemingly out of thin air. Manny finds himself wanting to check under the table. "Get me another scotch."

"Neat," Virago says before the waiter can ask. "And make it a double, since I see Santos has deigned to show up this time."

Manny follows the derisive stare over to Santos—who, up until just now, he'd only known as _that little scrimshawed man who only answers questions with muttered cursing in old-country language_.

"Two drink minimum on him, huh?"

"You have _no_ idea." If Virago ever got tired of flaying open conversational partners, Manny decides, he could probably use that tone to scour the grease off the Bone Wagon's axles.

"Hey, waiter, don't forget my friend Manuel's order here." Maximino's voice cuts back into the thought, and Manny looks around to find the waiter hunching apologetically in his direction.

"Oh, uh. On the rocks."

The man nods and bustles off.

"So..." Manny says into the measuring silence. "This is an annual party?"

"Yeah, just a little thing I like to do to let peoples' voices be heard, make sure everyone's up to date with the latest news. We're so far from El Marrow out here, it helps to keep everyone on the same page." Max sounds every bit the smug fat cat, but Manny supposes he's earned the tone by being obviously the top dog.

"Is attending mandatory?" he asks, pushing his luck a little.

"Well, _mandatory_ is a, it's such a strong word to use." Max waves his cigar in the air, smoke curling around him.

" _Strongly encouraged_ ," says Virago. "Particularly since the police use the opportunity to update us all on any changes to the tax rates."

"Right." Manny's already endured his first shakedown. He'd given it a C for subtlety, a D for gentility, but a great big A for clarity. "And when do they show up?"

"After the small talk." Virago plucks his drink off the tray as the waiter returns. "Though in my opinion," he goes on sourly, "we really could stand to hold this little to-do somewhere more in scale with the means of most of our attendees."

"I wouldn't hear of it." His employer brushes this off. "I like to be able to give back to the community." He tips his scotch in Manny's direction—Manny returns the gesture, and takes a swig of his drink that he hopes doesn't look too harried. It's smoky stuff, reminiscent of burnt wood, but with a skulking sweetness that peeks out around the chill when he lets it sit in his mouth.

"Yes," Virago is going on, "now if only the _community_ had more to offer in return than a naggingly persistent smell of brine and lead ink."

Some contribution to the conversation seems warranted at this point, though, Manny reflects, the company was making it hard to decide who to stand up for last. He settled for the easy joke.

"I wouldn't worry about it too much, Nick. If your janitors can keep this whole place from smelling like kitty litter, brine and lead ink should be a breeze."

This earns him a long, chilly stare from Virago and a shorter one, followed up by a brief chuckle and elbow nudge from Max.

"Manuel's got a handle on it. Now, how's about we go mingle a bit, huh?"

Virago grunts noncommittally and taps out his cigarette in an ashtray on the nearest table. He takes a long sip from his drink, then sets off towards Toto Santos with an expression that vividly pictures several thousand words' worth of disdain for the lower classes, civic duty, and the human condition in general.

Max gestures at Manny with his drink again. "Enjoy the shindig, Manuel. If you've got any good ideas on making Rubacava some more money, speak up at the meeting."

"You know it." Manny waves the man off as he lumbers after Virago. Manny then drains the rest of his drink, because he is going to need it, and skulks around the back of the couch to find the waiter and ask for an ice water, because he also needs to not be the drunkest sap at this soiree.

He gives the waiter a tip in return for the refill. It never hurts to start sowing good will early, he's always found. Anyway, it really is very good scotch.

* * *

 _Rum -_

Even in the dead of winter, the smell of salt hangs heavy over the docks, a faux hoarfrost that distills out of the air to crust on the piers and the chainlink gates. Chunks of white ice bob in the harbor like splintering bone, the tide dashing up the odd spray of freezing droplets against the wooden pylons and anyone standing too close to them.

The water isn't as cold as the wind blowing in off the Sea of Lament, moaning in the great empty gap left by the departure of the last ship. Manny stands on the docks, staring out at the misty line of the horizon—blank and flat, save the one ship chugging off towards it, its engine smoke a black smear on ash-gray skies.

Meche hadn't come to board.

He'd been _so sure_ this time _._

He imagines he can feel the wind crawling up through his jacket, circling around in his ribcage with the same cry it's howling out there right now. It burns, somehow, a cold, dry prickling that leaves his bones itching and aching. His fingers curl into fists at his sides; a fine tremor leaves his wrists feeling like plucked guitar strings. He has time to think _I'm being unusually morose about this_ before someone nudges him. He turns.

Velasco is standing behind an outstretched bottle of murky rum, giving him a look of mixed sympathy and exasperation. The man nudges him with the offering again, and Manny unclenches one hand enough to take it.

"Didn't show, huh? Well, there'll be another just like 'er coming through any day now."

"Not like her," Manny replies, working loose the cork in the bottle and taking a long swig. The rum swirls in his mouth like a dark tide, a first gasp of sweetness suddenly drowned in molasses and spice.

Velasco makes a sound that shouldn't theoretically be possible without a tongue to click sharply off his teeth. "I meant the ship, you bonehead."

"Er. Oh."

"You've got it pretty bad, huh?"

Manny sighs. "It's not like that." He takes another swig of the rum, then passes the bottle back. "It's just—she's my ticket out, you know? My Number Nine."

Velasco considers, taking a drink himself, before abruptly speaking. "Manny, I have never seen anyone so good at showing up and instantly fitting in as you. What's this woman got for you that's gonna lever you back out and gone again?"

He'd been too forthcoming there. But then, Velasco's the closest thing he's got in Rubacava to a friend, dutifully passing along rumors—like tonight's—about boarding passengers that might be Meche, and just as dutifully keeping his trap shut about it. _Might be time to buy a little more trust,_ Manny reflects, and has another gulp.

"This stuff isn't half-bad," he hears himself saying instead. "Though I'd have figured you for more of a grog person."

Velasco makes another _'tch_ ' sound and shakes his head.

"I think it's the whole ship captain thing." Manny digs himself in deeper. "I can just see you pounding on a table. 'Grog! Grog! Grog!'"

For a few seconds, Velasco looks dangerously close to pushing him off the dock. Then he backs off with a sigh. "That stuff's just for pirates and sailors who can't afford anything better to burn the barnacles off."

"Is that you being figurative, or can you actually get barnacles from being a sailor?" Manny tips the bottle up, has another swallow, and passes it back.

"Why do you think I stay at the docks these days?" Velasco mirrors the gesture. Manny is pretty sure he's joking, but also pretty sure Velasco won't tell him so at this juncture.

Manny takes the bottle back and measures out a slower sip, leaning up against the nearest pylon. He ought to ask about the S.S. Lamancha again, or some other past love of Velasco's life, but after the earlier rebuff, the man's probably in no mood to share. All in all, this is why Manny doesn't have many friends.

He looks out to the sea again. The wind carries another few droplets of water to scatter across his face. The ship is just a speck now, the line drawn by its exhaust diffused into the clouds. He imagines, briefly, hearing word of Meche too late, and walking into the sea after her. The water filling up his ribs, having nothing to drink but the sea—the salt-heavy air makes it easy to envision.

 _I really_ am _being morose about this._

At his side, Velasco reaches over to flick a finger against the bottle. It plinks emptily.

"I've got another bottle at the desk," the man offers.

Manny nods. He can close his own automat for the night if he wants. It's not like the place is hard to run; Glottis could probably do it blindfolded. Anyway, working in a dinky roadside diner is not how he wants to spend however much more of his afterlife Meche is going to take.

Velasco returns with the new bottle, cork already out. He takes a swallow, and offers it. "To ways out?"

"To ways out," Manny agrees fervently, and has another drink.

* * *

 _Mai Tai -_

"Smile for the camera, Manny!"

"Acgk!" Manny gets only a glimpse of purple and green before the flash goes off; he cringes back and covers his eyes with one hand, waiting for the glare to die back off into black. "Lola!"

Beside him, he hears Lupe giggle. "Get done early at the tracks tonight?" she asks, setting down the stack of chairs she'd been distributing around the room.

"Ah, I was almost outta film anyway. I thought I'd come see how things were going at Club Calavera." As Manny's vision clears he looks up to find Lola at the top of the stairs, leaning on the rail and surveying the new décor. "It's coming together real nice, Manny."

"Gracias," Manny starts, pleased, only to be interrupted by Lupe's cheery, "It isn't Club Calavera, though—he's changed the name again. Never known a boss to be so indecisive."

"I'm not _indecisive,_ I'm just still figuring out what's going to look nicest in lights."

"Whatever you say, boss," Lupe says, clearly just humoring him as she goes back to the chairs. "Just make sure you get your mind made up before Tuesday."

"Still opening back up next week?"

"That's the plan." Manny returns his attention to Lola, and gestures around the room. "Come on in; take a picture or two. We'll call it a soft opening."

She hesitates, taking two steps down before asking, "You sure I'm not in the way?"

Manny waves this off. "We're almost done here tonight anyway. I was gonna make a few drinks—I'm gonna need to brush up on my bartending skills, you know."

"You've never done bartending before?" Lola ventures around the banister, looking over the plush new carpeting.

 _Not for anybody other than me,_ Manny thinks, but says aloud, "I've never owned a club before, either, but that's coming along pretty well so far. So how 'bout it—what can I mix up for our very first guest?"

"He's making me a daiquiri," Lupe interjects, adjusting the angle on one more chair before she turns the last one around and sprawls down into it. "Glottis just got the freezer put in today."

"Someone callin' me?" The demon, with excellent timing as always, shoulders his way up from the basement, twisting around until he can fit through the trapdoor behind the bar. He's got a punchbowl full of ice cubes in one hand and a blender in the other, and flips the door closed with one foot before depositing the armload on the back counter.

"Duty calls, mi compadre," Manny answers, squeezing past Glottis to begin surveying the stocked liquors. "So what'll it be, Lola?"

"You got the stuff for a mai-tai?" she ventures, sitting down on one of the stools and setting her camera up on the bar.

Manny waves a finger at her. "Trying to stump me, eh? No luck there. There's too many tourists in this town not to know that one." He turns to the back counter and starts pulling bottles—rum, triple sec, orgeat syrup, and a tray of cherries and sliced limes.

Lola giggles. "You got me." She rests her chin in her hands and watches him work; he can hear one of her shoes tapping rhythmically on the opposite side of the bar. He puts extra panache into it, for the sake of the audience, pouring freehand—because what's a little overfill between friends?—as he layers the concoction into a glass. With a final flourish, he tops it with a cherry and slides it over to her.

She takes a sip, eyes on the drink, then looks up to flash him a smile. "Tastes great, Manny. D'you—"

"Me next! Me me!" Lupe demands, bouncing up from her chair and dropping onto a barstool with enough force to spin the seat in place all the way around.

"So impatient," he teases, but sets to work on the daiquiri, sprinkling sugar onto ice in the blender, squeezing a few limes over it, and adding the rum. He puts on the lid, presses a button, then has to ignore the laughter while he pats around beneath the bar looking for a power outlet. He finds it, takes a moment to regain his good humor while he listens to the blender rumble, then pops back up.

"No more making fun, or the house will be closing early," he warns, shaking the drink into a new glass and pushing it towards Lupe.

"The house should lighten up," she answers, "maybe have a drink of his own and try to relax for one night."

Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see Lola pick up the cherry and, watching him, absently bite it off at the stem. A glimpse of red, then it's gone. Maybe, he reflects, the house should cut its losses early.

"Hey, how about the house assistant?" _Bless you, Glottis._ "Who's been lugging around a lot more heavy equipment than the house, he might add."

"The house assistant gets _one_ ," Manny answers, turning to his orange friend. "The house has seen what happens when his assistant gets too many glasses in him."

"Lemme get one of those fruity things, then." Glottis points a claw at the girls' drinks, then amends, dramatically. "Not the frozen one, though. Too much ice banks the great grease fire within."

"It'd take more than one ice cube to put you out." Manny contemplates his options, then sets to making another mai-tai, heavy on the triple sec, leaving out the orgeant in favor of a dash more lime juice. Considering, he bends down, retrieves a bottle of hot sauce, and adds a few drops to the top. "Enjoy. I call it, _Pay Heed, the Volcano God Stirs._ "

"The Volcano God can come right over here and talk to me about it." Glottis makes grabby hands at him until Manny passes him the drink.

"As catchy names go, it could use some work. Boss, are you just bad at names in general?" Lupe kicks her feet under the table, and híjole, she's already through half the glass; where is she _putting_ it? "Oh, and fill me up again, if you would please."

Shaking his head in wonder, Manny starts another.

"What are you gonna have, Manny?" Lola asks, not even a quarter of the way through hers, thankfully.

"Oh, the house never drinks," he demurs. "Have to keep on top of things."

Lupe can roll her eyes very theatrically for someone who doesn't have them anymore. "Oh come on, Manny! I know you know how to live a little; you're opening a casino just to kill time!"

Lola and Glottis both agree—a nod from one, a thumbs-up from the other—and the former pushes her drink back towards him. "Here, have a sip of mine, at least."

"You can have the rest of mine if you give me a new one."

"I'd like to have a few more words with the Volcano God, myself."

Manny shakes his head, but relents. It'll help him tweak recipes, at least. The mai-tai is much too sweet for his tastes, and anyway, he remembers reading that arsenic tastes like almonds, which makes it too sweet _and_ too morbid. The daiquiri could definitely stand to take the loudness down a notch; it fills his mouth like someone using his skull as a punch bowl, or maybe some kind of Brazilian parade full of fruit-wearing dancers.

The Volcano God does, indeed, need some work.

* * *

 _Vodka Martini -_

Holy Week. It's obviously not as big a production in the Land of the Dead as it was in the Land of the Living, especially in a city of lost souls like Rubacava, but some things get to be a habit when you practice them enough. The community-wide passion play you were in every year of your life. The parades you used to bring your grandchildren to. The candlelight mass where you waited in the dark in hopes of a miracle. Even the little antojitos you ate through the day because the restaurants were all closed and it was still Lent anyway. The human soul longs for familiar things.

All of which is to say, it's Easter Sunday and business is deader than his profit margin. And so Manny, taking the opportunity to sit behind the bar and clean glasses he's barely touched all week, is not expecting to hear his front door opening, and footsteps on the stairs.

Olivia's discarded her usual coat, presumably in recognition of the warmth of the season, but the beret is instantly recognizable, to say nothing of the coiled saunter. The woman moves like a cat that knows it's already broken the legs of whatever poor mouse it's hunting.

"So," she announces as she reaches the base of the stairs and pivots around to face him, one hand on her hip. "Know anyone here who could get a girl a drink?"

"I think you've got me mixed up with that high roller's lounge your boyfriend runs." The reminder is unlikely to put her off, but it's worth a shot, right? Talking to her in public is one thing; her showing up at his deserted bar at sundown is quite another. Olivia Ofrenda is not the kind of trouble he needs in his afterlife.

Olivia waves this off. "Max is off at church today," she says, her cool tone leaving no doubt as to what she thinks of this particular confession. She approaches the bar and hooks a heel into the strut of a stool to boost herself into it, finishing the movement by swinging one leg across the other and leaning against the bar to stare at him over the rims of her glasses.

"So how about it? From one club owner to the next?"

"You know it's actually illegal for me to sell you alcohol today," Manny answers, continuing to polish a glass. Always look confident, that's his motto.

"Who's asking you to _sell?_ " she counters. She pulls out her long cigarette holder and plants it in an ashtray several seats down, dragging it over to rest in front of her.

"How about a nice horchata?"

"Come off it, Manny!" she laughs, flicking the wheel on a lighter and setting the flame to her cigarette. "You obviously don't have anywhere better to be."

She isn't wrong, though he can think of a number of places he'd _rather_ be. Oh, well. He sets the glass down and turns to face her. "You tell me a poem, and I'll get you a drink."

"Sawdust, dustbin, Saint John's woodsmen—" she begins.

"An _original_ poem."

"Manny, I didn't know you liked my work." She smiles, brows arched, but shrugs when he doesn't take the bait. "The poem comes after the drink. I don't compose poetry sober."

"Deal," he agrees, and spreads his hands. "What will it be?"

"Vodka martini," she replies, and adds, "and make it dry."

"Vodka martini dry it is." He forbears to comment on her taste, and snags a glass as he stands. She watches him in silence as he shuffles about, stirring together vodka and a splash of vermouth, and excusing himself to duck into the basement kitchen for olives.

"So." He slides the glass across the bar to her. "Not much for the prayer set?"

She accepts the drink and the conversation starter gracefully. "I once played the Virgin in a school play." She places one hand over her breast, fingertips barely splayed, and cranes her head down at an angle to match every distraught-looking Mary he's ever seen painted on a glass candle holder or cheap plaque. "Our Lady of Sorrows. Just for the change of pace. Can't you just see it?"

"Not even a little."

She chuckles, unoffended, and takes a sip of the martini. "Neither could I. I'm afraid I just can't relate. What about you? Did you ever play the good little choir boy?"

"Not ever," Manny answers. This kind of conversation was against the rules back at the D.O.D., and the fact that he doesn't work there anymore doesn't make Manny any more eager to have it. "How about Max?"

"Another one of his pillar-of-the-community performance pieces." Olivia inhales against her cigarette and breathes out a long stream of smoke. "Though obviously, you didn't hear that from me."

"Obviously." Manny leans back against the counter, studying the woman sitting across from him. Is this loneliness? Boredom? The slowest-moving seduction he's ever seen? He doesn't know her well enough to say; this is more words than he's ever exchanged with her.

"So why don't you ever come down into town?" Olivia swirls her drink and has another sip, gazing at him over the rim. "All I ever hear about you is how you stay cooped up here in your club, if you're not down at the docks."

A fishing expedition, then. He keeps his tone glib. "My soul doesn't need to get any more lost than it already is, thanks."

"You live in Rubacava, Manny. Clearly, you've already missed that boat." She taps her cigarette against the ashtray, and leans on one elbow, chin resting lightly on the heel of her hand. "So what are you waiting for?" Her voice takes on an affected air, an actress waxing into soliloquy. "Vengeance? Lost love? A debt unpaid?"

"Actually, Glottis is the one waiting. I'm just killing time." If he thought for a moment that she'd take him seriously, he might feel bad for dragging Glottis's name into this, but he doesn't. And indeed, she doesn't either—but she does apparently decide the conversation is no longer diverting.

Olivia snorts and stands, unfolding from the chair. "If you want to keep secrets in this town, you should get better at the small talk." She takes a last swig of the martini, then plants it down directly in front of him. "Here's your poem.

" _On the Day of the Dead, a man came to town_

 _Driven, a crusade wrapped in bone._

 _One year later, still around._

 _Fire's out, scrabbling alone._ "

With that, she plucks the olive out of the martini and heads back towards the stairs. "You can finish off the martini, Manny. Just, God, try to lighten up."

She pointedly does not stalk or stomp up the stairs, nor does she slam the door behind her. The quiet click somehow feels even more dismissive. But then, 'consigned to the basement of liquor and solitude' is probably preferable to where the evening could have ended up.

He picks up the martini, studies it for a moment, then shrugs and throws it back. It's thick in his mouth, bitter and brackish for all that it swallows smooth as water. He sets the glass in the dish bin beneath the counter, and heads upstairs to make a start on the month's paperwork.

* * *

 _Red Wine-_

Manny walks down the police station steps still muttering imprecations under his breath, but roughhouses his expression back to a pleasant blankness before he raps on the metal door and lets himself into the morgue.

The wet scent of greenery rolls over him for the second time in one night, stronger this time, with a depth that suggests it's eaten its way into the walls and is not going anywhere absent a full demolition. He's prepared for it, or he'd thought he was, but the thickness of it, underscored with black soil and and the maroon bitterness of bone marrow, piled up to the ceiling in the damp mid-summer heat, leaves him gagging all the same.

"Yes, it can take people like that at first," says someone on the other side of the shrubbery. The voice sounds like exhaustion on a vinyl record, two whole sides of _Fed_ _Up With Life's Mierda, a recording by Yours Truly_. "I'm assuming Bogan sent you down to verify this as the body you found on your doorstep tonight?"

"Sí." Swallowing back a memory of bile, Manny looks up—and up some more, since someone decided to put the slabs on a pedestal—to find the coroner watching him. The smears of green on the blue labcoat jump out at him first, dark and damning. Next are the worry-lines carved around the man's eyes; he couldn't _not_ look tired if he wanted to.

Membrillo—or so Bogan had named Rubacava's only coroner—laughs. It's wry and humorless, and sure enough, doesn't make him look any less weary. "You must have annoyed him. He only ever sends people down here that he doesn't like." He turns back to his work, waving one hand at Manny dismissively. "No need to hang around down here, Mr. Calavera. Once someone ends up on my slab, it doesn't much matter where they were dug up."

Manny stares at him. He finds himself intrigued, despite the gag reflex. If his gut instinct is right, Membrillo's one of the really _old_ ones. Manny had known one or two of them back in El Marrow, people who'd been in the Eighth Underworld for so long that it seemed like their connection to it was beginning to thin and fray. There's a delicacy to the way they move, precise and efficient, but with a sense of weightlessness, like they're being tugged around by a puppeteer instead of moving wholly from within themselves. As the coroner combs ungloved hands through the shoots of tulips making a window planter out of the deceased's ribcage, his fingers explore every cavity the dead normally conceal with a tender and remorseless grace.

It leaves Manny feeling suddenly like an intruder. He coughs and turns half-away, and the susurrus of autopsy stops at the sound.

"Ah, I see," says the man on the platform. "This is your first time seeing a sprouting, isn't it?"

"No," says Manny automatically, then reluctantly concedes, "I mean, I've heard a lot about it. But I guess _technically_... Yes, this is my first time."

Membrillo chuckles again, scraping and grainy, a sound like the tide turning pebbles over on the beach. He comes down the stairs and gestures for Manny to follow him over to the nearest cabinet, one of more than a dozen lining the building walls. Morbidly curious, Manny does so.

He's somehow unsurprised when a whole column of the doors swings open in one piece, revealing a clothes hook, a small, battered steel lunch pail, and an unlabeled bottle made of dark glass.

"I guess all government employees think alike," he says before he can quite stop himself, mind on his office's filing cabinet closet, then waves it off hurriedly when Membrillo turns a blank stare on him.

"...When you have to deal with our rulers, it does seem like there's only one good solution," the coroner says at last, bending over and pulling out the bottle and the smudged glass behind it. "But, to commemorate your first sprouting, let me give you some advice."

"And that is?"

"Don't sleep tonight." Thin-boned fingers grasp and twist around what Manny realizes is a cork, not a cap, at the neck of the bottle. "You'll dream of the ground and the grave. Of suffocating, of being buried in flowers." Membrillo cups the glass in the palm of his hand and pours. The bouquet hits Manny's nose like a 3AM phone call. He didn't even know they _made_ wine in the afterlife.

The other man offers him the glass, and finishes, "Just go and have some drinks instead, and try to think of anything else until morning."

"I feel like this raises a lot of questions with answers I'm frankly not very comfortable thinking about," Manny jokes, stalling as he watches the wine list up the walls of the glass and crawl away, leaving behind an ominous tint of red veneer.

"That's often the case with the private lives of coroners, I'm afraid."

The answer startles a laugh out of him. But then, the _really_ old ones can get like that—so long in the ground, so long in their places, that they've completely stopped even wondering what other people think of them. In a way (a distinctly drawn-to-things-that-are-the-opposite-of-me sort of way), Manny finds it admirable.

He takes the glass.

"Membrillo, right?" At the coroner's nod, he finishes, "Call me Manny."

The wine tastes like something out of the deepest chambers of the heart he no longer has, the reddest marrow of forgotten life. He remembers with a vividness that clings to his bones like a stain—candlelight, the scent of Spanish roses, the softness of dusky skin under his questing fingertips, black hair glistening damp with sweat. The pounding of blood in his temples and wrists, a leaping pulse that sings of life, of sweet, sweet life.

Then he swallows, and it turns to dust.

He holds his poise (holds his breath) for as long as he can, then breathes out, more shakily than he'll later admit.

"How do you drink that stuff?" he asks, with perfect, multi-layered honesty.

Membrillo recorks the bottle and waves it at the body on the slab. "We don't hold wakes for those who die here, Manny. But I think someone ought to remember for those poor souls what they've lost before they're consigned to the ground—for the last time."

He pulls the wine from Manny's unresisting fingers, drains what's left of it in a slow, solemn draught, then lifts the empty glass towards the luckless victim in a toast as silent (as the cliché goes) as the grave.

* * *

 _Gin Martini (and a Mezcal Straight) -_

Manny walks up the stairs to his room carefully, watching the levels of the two drinks on the tray in his hand. He heads out to the balcony, closing the door behind him, and sets the drinks on the railing, the tray down against the wall.

The wind tonight is at a low slither, salt and smoke on the breeze. Down below, a great many of Rubacava's usual lights are out—tomorrow is the Day of the Dead, and people have headed home already. It isn't a long trip, precisely, but last-minute drivers are in high enough demand that you tended to leave early if you didn't want to miss half the day.

 _Is Meche getting a ride home tonight? Or still out there, somewhere?_

The road he took to Rubacava is scattered, here and there, with headlights. People headed off to El Marrow, which has more drivers, more access to the highways that go back to the Land of the Living. The Petrified Forest sits on the road like a pitfall, a spread of black paint on the distant landscape. Normally Manny prefers to face the ocean, but he isn't up here for himself tonight.

He moves the shot glass a little closer to the far edge of the railing and picks up his martini. He turns the stem in his hand, staring at the olive on the bottom. There's no scent, just a faint thinness to the air above the surface that promises a clearer head and a simpler future at the bottom of the glass. He takes a sip.

It sits in his mouth like water, flavorless and faintly chilled. Already, he can feel it dispersing, seeping off into his bones, a spiritual reminder of _You are here. Your business is unfinished. Press on, o soul, towards your final rest._

It leaves an aftertaste of spice when it's gone.

He makes his way through the glass, alternating between watching the road, the mezcal and the approaching olive as his drink turns slowly saltier, and tries not to think of anything much.

The Day of the Dead is tomorrow. A whole year since he left on this journey, and still no sign of her. If the D.O.D. had caught up to her, whatever means of travel she left with, she should have come through by now. He can't have missed her—he and Glottis arrived so fast, clearing out the demon beavers on their way through, and what else in that forest could be even half as bad?

The image of the mother spider-bat crawls across his mind, shadowed and dim and huge in his memory. He shudders, shaking his head, and picks up the olive, consuming it in a quick bite and letting the quick jolt of acidity clear out the webs.

He finishes the drink in a last briny sip and sets down the glass.

"I'll still wait," he announces to the woods. "At least this job's better than my old one. Enjoy the mezcal, Meche. Come see me and I'll make you another."

He doesn't wait for the light wind to emphasize the lack of response, just turns around, retrieves the tray, and heads back downstairs. He'll come back for the glasses in the morning.

END

* * *

NOTES:

Thanks go to my beta and my boyfriend for their respective help with grammar and the finer details of writing about alcohol. Blame goes to my boyfriend for any and all snobbery about vodka martinis vs. gin martinis.

For the curious, the poem Olivia starts to quote is Aserrín Aserrán, a Spanish-language lullaby/children's song that maaaay be about the brutal suppression of a labor riot. I used the translation with the best spoken rhythm.


End file.
